Quadrupedal Robot ANYmal Takes on Badminton: Reaction Time is the Bottleneck
2025-06-11
Researchers at ETH Zurich trained a quadrupedal robot, ANYmal, to play badminton. While ANYmal learned to avoid falls and assess risk based on its speed limitations, its reaction time (around 0.35 seconds) is significantly slower than elite human players (0.12-0.15 seconds). Visual perception also presented a challenge, with ANYmal's stereo camera suffering from positioning errors and limited field of view. The team plans to improve ANYmal's performance by predicting trajectories, upgrading hardware (such as event cameras), and improving actuators. However, the commercial prospects for this technology are not promising.
AI
badminton